Faith isn't faith until it's all you're holding onto.
----

Exams are O-V-E-R. (yeah, spell that.)

And I had a surprisingly good training today. Glide, power, balance... I thought I'd be way off kilter, after four days, but it wasn't as bad as I reckoned it might be.
Naturally, that also means it's not as good as it could be. (when is it, ever?)
So yeah, it's all systems go, go, go-- ten days of intensive training, and then it's The Day, rolling around, and we'd better be ready to rock and roll and row, too.

Oh yeah and today was weird.
Like, at morning training- all the guy canoeists have hair.
So s'all normal yeah?

Yeah so then. Water training rolls around, and I see these shorn headed people running up the hill, and I'm all, "Who's that?", and it turns out that a bunch of canoeist guys had a mass shave in the toilet. (:

...Why, I have no idea, and I haven't asked.

But I thought it was pretty amusing.

I've got to get used to seeing 'em without their hair, though... :/

Aiman doesn't look like a lion no more.

Okay now I'm getting hassled to go off.

...Finnneeee.


Hey, loves.

You're beautiful when you smile.


Class dismissed.
Homework for today: to experiment the body's intake of poisonous cleansing chemicals.
A golden star for the ones sent to the E.R.
---------

Talk about Monday blues!

I fully have a case to file against whoever runs Mondays around here.

Today's Physics exam started at 8.15 am, and I was intending to wake up a little earlier to go through my file for the gazillionth time.

Yeah, and I wake up and look at the alarm clock, and it's 8.11, and in my state of groggy feverish stupor, I'm all, "No, that can't be, it's probably 8.11 at night, I can sleep for- oh, ten hours more,"

(in aforementioned state of groggy stupor, I also forgot that nobody in the whole wide world sleeps before 8.11 pm anyway.)

and then my eyes snap open, and I'm all, "AH! 8.11! Omigosh no, no, nuuu..."

and I wake my parents up, and my dad hurtles me to school like some F1 driver ( I so owe him!) and in my rush I realize that I've forgotten to check where the exam venue is, so I sprint from LT to LT opening doors and seeing J1 canoeists, caught mid-sentence with pen in hand, glancing up curiously at me (what, y'mean IP kids are taking the same exams as us now?) and shutting doors and opening doors and shutting doors and wringing my hands and generally making a fool out of myself; before realizing that the exam's probably being held in class, after which I fly to class and collapse into my seat, get my paper, and start scribbling to make up for the lost fifteen minutes.

...Grah, talk about getting out on the wrong side of bed. :/

Or in this case- getting out on the right side of bed; very late.

Some people sleeptalk and sleepwalk.
Yeah, well. Apparently I sleep-turnoffmyalarmclockwhenitrings.

At least now I know.

And my mum thought I needed more alarm clocks, so today she went and bought another one; and when she got back home she realized I already had two more in my room- so now I've got four alarm clocks in my room. Though rightfully, only two of them are working- since the other two died in noble and gallant action waking me up for training every morning this June hols.

...Oh, and I almost forgot.
Pre-exam stress seems to have gotten to everybody.
Oh my.

Ren Jean: "...I met a waiter...in Turkey..."
Cara: *snicker*
Ren Jean: " ...And I met a potter...in Chile..."

Maxine: "...Maybe we should all drink Red Bull before exams. :/"
Melissa: " o_O Red boobs? Drink red boobs before exams?"

Serene: *splashes water on herself, presumably to cool herself down* (...yes Serene, we all know you're hot. ;D)
Random person: "What're you doing?"
Serene: *explains* "...I had an urge."
Kat: *chirps* "...Serene had an urge, so she wet herself."
Serene: O_O
All: O_O

Ren Jean: " The guys there are either really good-looking, or really ugly."
Kat: "...I think Thais are good-looking."
Cara: "O_O Thighs? You think thighs are good-looking?"
Kat: "Yeah, why not? Thais are pretty good-looking what."
Cara: ...O_O.

HAHAHA.

Keep it up, people.

At this rate, we'll be hitting the loony bin by our sixteenth birthdays.


Please sleep, my darling, sleep
Your cry for inspiration
never reaches ears on distant stars
and every night our lonely planet
slides across the universe
And I won't pretend I understand
-------

Yeah, sleep.

Like that could solve all of our problems.

But I don't know; I think I'm beginning to get the hang of living.

God knows, I kinduv really hate it at times, and sometimes on impulse I wish it would just shut up and go away and leave me alone; but in a sense I'm glad that wishes don't always come true, because on second thoughts, Six Feet Under wouldn't be the most fun place to be on Earth, either.

Still, I kinduv sortuv miss life as I knew it, too.

I've changed, so much, and I think if I were to meet the me from a few years back; I probably wouldn't think much of her.
And I reckon the yester-me wouldn't like me all that much, either.

The yester-me wouldn't have done a lot of things I've done, either.

1. The yester-me wouldn't have known what eyeliner was. Is. Whatever.
2. The yester-me wouldn't even have attempted to tint my hair brown with henna; and consequently been extremely annoyed when aforementioned henna did nothing but turn hair a darker shade of...black.
3. The yester-me wouldn't have joined canoeing. Um, let alone NJC canoeing.
4. The yester-me pinned her fringe up. Waaaaaay up. With, like, a hairband, and stuff.
(Also, the yester-me never received any threats to have her fringe lobbed off.)
5. The yester-me wouldn't have gone around revealing weird bits of her yester-self on her blog. She'd probably have been oblivious, or whatever.

Yeah, and did I mention?
The yester-me so would have absolutely nothing to do with any semblance of sporting activities. I bet my 1.6 km timing back then was like two times my current 2.4 km timing. (okay, prone to exaggeration. Take with a pinch of salt, please; give me some credit, I wasn't THAT bad.)
Oh yeah, and what pain threshold?

The Now Me... is weird, yeah, and she's got her hang-ups, (like everyone else);

but now she's learnt the art of hanging tight and moving on.

She knows what pain feels like- real pain;
excruciating, blinding, white-hot pain,
the kind that catches your breath and forces it back down into your lungs when you're gasping for air, grasping for hope, and groping for something- anything- to pull you through.

She's learnt what it means to hurt,
so bad it's all you can do just to curl over and hold your sides and breathe,
She's learnt how to breathe,
She's learnt how to battle through the hurt one breath at a time;

She's realized how broken our generation is; how broken we all are--
(look at all the lonely people), and
she's discovered that all of us hurt, but are still capable of being beautiful.

She's learnt that friends might always be there for you, yeah, but even they fall too;
and sometimes it's all you can do just to stay upright and mobile when everyone else is falling all around you.


She's learning how to live.

And yeah, it's not easy, for something so simple-sounding; but she'll get there.

Yeah, the Now Me could probably lay the yester-me flat on her back;

and who knows?

The Now Me could probably teach the yester-me a thing or two.


Am I alive?
----

"Am I alive?"
And I shudder, and I shake,
And I get the hang of breathing as
(In, out) we tango into this maelstrom of white heat

And we're fighting to come out alive,
Yeah, it's a race to see who survives.

I miss my bestie already.
I miss her so bad, even though I know that she's probably still at the airport right now (soy latte, Starbucks <3), and while it's a weird connection, the feeling that she's still here; I don't know how I'm going to be able to make it through eleven days without being able to talk to my soul sister.

I miss how we used to laugh for the sake of laughing; to hell to those who stared, who cared? ...We didn't.

Now it seems we laugh just to fill up the silence,
and the smiles we share? - temporary, fade in, fade out;
and tomorrow they'll be gone again; tomorrow we'll have to find a new face again.

I miss feeling alive.

Oh God, I miss feeling alive.

-----

Quotes, for all of you who're losing faith, and are hanging on desperately, wondering if maybe the bleak horizon will bring---

'Cause our days were numbered by nights on too many rooftops.
They said we're wasting our lives,
Oh at least we know, that if we die-
We lived with passion.
They said we'd burn so bright.

And some days make me feel weak and shaky.
Some fly right by me like a paper airplane,
and I hardly notice that the world's gone crazy but nothing's clearer than the way you say my name.

August evenings bring solemn warnings
To remember to kiss the ones you love goodnight.

You can't explain why you're feeling alone
Falling asleep to a dial tone
You dream about the trouble you're in
Then you pray that something fits.

Maybe you're just jaded;
from some nobody's unforgotten words.
Maybe you're just faded;
a little grey from every time that you've been hurt

You pile up enough tomorrows,
and you'll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays.
I don't know about you, but I'd like to make today worth remembering.
-- Harold Hill, the Music Man

If there's one piece of advice I can give you, It's this.
When there's something you really want, fight for it.
Don't give up no
matter how hopeless it seems.
And when you've lost all hope, ask yourself if in 10 years from now,
you're gonna wish you gave it one more shot.
Because the best things in life,
they don't come free.

-----

Yeah, and I know a whole score of you out there are this close to caving in, to giving up, to losing it.

Don't.

We're all in this together. We're all suffering together, and I need you to hold on,

The world needs you to hold on,

You need to hold on for everything you believe in and everything you stand for.

Please remember this:
Yes, you are small but you're all irreplacable and are invaluable and miraculous.
Those stars don't have anything on you.

Hold on,

and don't ever let go, because if you fall, I'd throw myself in just to snatch for your hand.

<3